Living Gandhi and King Today: Unbroken Historic Continuity

#357....
Manto
"Jinnah was a true Indian patriot..."
Do you know, what it needs to be a patriot?
How much Jinnah knew about India? Nothing...
How much interaction he had with people of India? Nothing..
Partition was not very ancient event. Bloodshed is still in the mind of people in their 80s/90s...In, no yardstick Jinnah deserves any respect from Indians or anybody else, other than Pakis....

"Maybe someday India will atone for the sins of Gandhians and the Congress Party..."

People have done that for long time. Starting with PVN, Indians become smarter and Pakistan (apart from being nuicense creator) never appears in middle-class discussions...You can check that in Indian newspapers...

Manto, you know, why Majumder and lot of Indians support Jinnah (specialy now)? He helped Indians from getting rid of mediaval arab barbarism to great extent...It is like local thug getting support for killing the crazy street dog....


Coming to Gandhi, apart from Chauri Chaura, Gandhi was not directly associated with any movement, that ended up with violence and loss of life (at least from his followers). One or two abberations, do not make his achievent mean. The people, against whom (British Govt.), he initiated movement, should be the best judge....

Moplah jihad was purely islamic problem....

Posted on behalf on Manto:

Any fairminded Indian patriot regardless of his faith or origin who loves India and who has the gutts to read history for what it is will - I have no doubt- one day come to the conclusion that Gandhi was one of biggest charlatans to walk the Indian soil and that Jinnah was a true Indian patriot before he was a Muslim and he was driven away by bad policies.

Many people in India have come to this conclusion. These people are the true patriots of India and its greatest well wishers ...

I know of atleast three major works of history and politics that have done their part in setting the record straight in India:

1. "Partition of India: Legend and Reality" by H M Seervai

2. Gandhi and Jinnah: their role in the quest of indian's freedom.

3. Jinnah: a corrective reading of Indian history by Asiananda


Maybe someday India will atone for the sins of Gandhians and the Congress Party... And maybe Pakistan will re-discover the true facts of partition and Pakistan and India shall stand together as neighbors and allies against the entire world as Jinnah had wanted it before it was soured.

Posted on behalf of Manto:

Dear NKG,

This is not about Jinnah but Gandhi. However direct action day has been discussed to death here and you can see the discussion elsewhere on chowk. Suffice to say your equation of his one call of direct action (civil disobedience) with call for violence is historically untenable ... Every single one of Gandhi's calls ended up in violence and what you are argue for Jinnah is then 100 times more applicable to Gandhi.

Jehad was operationalized by Gandhi's Khilafat movement. Read post 169. I have also established a clear link between today's Jehadis and Gandhi's favorite deobandi mullahs.

Eveb breakaway faction of Pro-Congress JUH - usmani's jamiat- quoted Gandhi (and certainly not Jinnah) to defend the Islamic content of Objectives resolution. Read PCA debates. So this Islamic state business has nothing to do with Pakistan's creation per se.

Gandhians used reactionary Islamist ideology to discredit the Muslim bourgeoisie leadership. In NWFP especially and in rest of india example the KK and JUH spread the rumor (or fact) that Jinnah did not even know how to pray and that he married a "kafira" (majlis e ahrar) and that his daughter was married to a kafir.


As for your "civilized" comment it just shows your bias and an unfortunate inability to see the facts for what they are.

Adam mian,

You did no such thing bhai. Your logic would make sense if either Majumdar or I had claimed that Gandhi was biologically the grandfather of the taliban which is a numeric impossibility. Grand daddy is a metaphor and we've already proved why.

Look I concur with you that Bacha Khan's appeal to sharia was political. It is not as much even that but the damage that the claim that faqir of ipi with Bacha Khan's support that Pakistan government was irreligious and therefore jehad was fard against it that is similar to the situation today.

Jinnah's letter to manki promising that "the laws shall not be in conflict with sharia" my friend is quite different from promising one kind of interpretation of sharia law. It was a lawyerly response by Jinnah to the campaign against him by Gandhi's buddies the Jamiat e ulema Hind and KK etc proclaiming Jinnah's antipathy to Islam and irreligiousity.


It proves that Gandhi's project of using Islam and Mullahs to discredit bourgeoisie Muslim leadership was still in operation.


However what makes Gandhi the grand daddy of taliban is the fact that he politicized Islamic mullahs and made jehad and Islamic stick a permanent feature of the political landscape ... A far cry from the Muslim bourgeosie interested political and economic empowerment which led the Pakistan movement.

Re: # 276
Manto...
Indians are against Jinnah not for creation of Pakistan. The bloodhsed mattered most to Indians. If your national hero, Jinnah, was so confident about his support base as per as separate country is concerned, he and ML should have waited for couple of more years. After British leaves, Pakistan could have been created with some fixed time frame. Who called for Jihad/direct action day? M K Gandhi or ML/Jinnah? Who incited tribals to invade Kashmir (1948)?
Who are calling for Jihad in Kashmir? Pepole living in Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore etc., who had nothing to share with Gandhi....Kashmir terrorism is Jinnah's legacy of Islamic state.So is Taliban....Your holy book was not creation of Gandhi. Neither, Gandhi ever followed your holy book....

A civilised person can not ask for a separate country through thuggery and attack on civilians. Jinnah, throughout the history of Pakistan creation, represented that thuggery and Jihad....


Coming to Gandhi...

Gandhi had single point agenda at that time; let the British leave India without much bloodshed and animosity. British people should not raise any finger towards Indians, after they leave India. He was successful in his mission and so he is revered everywhere. Whether he has slept with his niece, it does not matter to most of the people....

Yaaaawn!

Yasser, dear boy, I don't think you have your normal handle on Gandhi in your interacts on this board. So here it goes:

Gandhi is a racist, fascist pig who slept with his nieces.

Mantolives:

I just showed you the hopelessness of your logic and on that your cried foul!? and instead of pointing out "deviousness" in my posts I think you should reconsider your flips from "grand daddy" to "enabler".

HP:

Can you think of any major muslim leaders from the past who spoke out against Sharia in Public? Even Jinnah as evident from his letter to the Pir of Manki was using sharia as a binding constraint in his image of a secular Pakistan.

Ghaffar Khan used to refer to hindus as "Ahl-i-Kitab" and to Gita as a sacred text. I think this interpretation is far more liberal than what modern day PPP believes in its views of the Ahmadis.

Ghaffar Khan is also accredited with the first ever monthly Pushto magazine "Pukhtoon" (1928). In it were articles that challenged the concept of Purdah and raised issues on woman rights.

His son Ghani Khan, a prominent Pushtoon poet ran a column in that particular magazine in which he challenged Pushtoon norms and especially the Mullah. If you read Ghani Khan's poetry he uses the word Mullah as synonymous to "hypocrite".

For these reasons, any opposition to this family has come with the title "Kafir", whether it was the time of partition or today. I remember during one election campaign, some Jamiatiyas had a picture of Ghaffar baba standing next to Gandhi jee and they were showing it to people as evidence of Ghaffar baba being a hindu.

Manto I think is one of the very few (if not the only one) who would describe Wali Bagh as a fort for Islamic Fundamentalism. To the JUI or JI followers and leadership this might come across as a great insult.

So I completely disagree with your assessment of him as a religious conservative. Political spectrums change over time and we have to judge these historical figures by the dynamics at their time. If one is to apply todays western norms of political correctness to the past, then we dont have any "liberal" politicians in our history...

I mean what do you think would be Jinnah's or for that matter Zardari's view on homosexual marriages?

masanmuthu # 350,

Often I have wondered if the khilafat movement to restore the muslim temporal body succeded, what would have been the shape of the world today.
For an organized religion like christianity, a pope (despite being catholic head) can at least speak for the large xtian community in various matters.
Be it violence against xtians or interfaith issues etc. The xtians feel that they have a voice. So what happens when an organized religion is decapitated by removing its temporal head. With no more leadership (how so ever much ridiculous they may be) fanatics usually try to gain control
by claiming to be stricter followers of their respective faiths. I think this is the story of islam since last century. Now you pay with having bin laden s and ayman zawahiris of the world trying to become the leaders of their ummah. See how progressive they have become. I don't see the big deal in having a nincompoop as head of any organized religion who displays anger or happiness at the state of his community from time to time. At least
some maniac terrorists cannot usurp the whole community in the name of God. I doubt it if the khalifa (if he had been the head today) would have ever allowed anyone else to take his powers over the ummah away from him. He would have put to place the bin ladens in their respective caves.
At worst he would have been looked upon just as the pope in his long frock is looked upon by the world. But in todays world, just as the pope had to change the past positions of the church w.r.t the evolution theory, inquistion etc. there was at least some chance that the established leader of the ummah would have been forced to reconcile and modernise the stupid ummah instead of encouraging them to run after the 72 virgins.
My last thought about the two organised religions' parallels is comparing their evolution to china and soviet union. By controlling the reforms slowly the chinese have managed better even with a stupid commie system. But what happened to soviets who tried to get rid of it too fast. Now you have Putin controlling russia.

So lets stop blaming the poor old chap who with all his whims, quirks and idiosyncracies who left a lasting legacy of non-violence that the world is emulating. Blaming him for the taliban perhaps would be like Ahmedinajad's logic of dismissing the holocaust as it never happened.

Adios

Manto writes "Richard Attenborough's character in Jurassic Park is obvious equivalent of Gandhi.

And the Raptors and Rex etc are equivalents of Islamic and Hindu fundamentalism which Gandhi-unwittingly- spawned."

This person is a god damned genius. Like Homer Simpson said the World is like a donut, Manto says the struggle against Brit colonization is like Jurassic Park. No wonder we are in the shape we are in when such is the mentality of our "men of letters". What a god damned joke this person is.

Have a nice day,

TNI Masadi

Glad to see you agreeing on the issue of Khilafat movement atleast.

I don't think I ever disagreed on the stupidity of Khilafat movement.

My disagreement is with Gandhi being blamed for the rise of Taliban. And I have seen just flimsy reasons to support that story.

Dash,

Less popular and just causes...

Ras,

This is the finest cause there is. World must be freed of irrational superstitions that Gandhi embodied.


Masanamuthu,

Glad to see you agreeing on the issue of Khilafat movement atleast.
You should read "ironies of history: khilafat movement" by Hamza Alavi- a well known and well respected historian in both India and the West.

What I have said and what Majumdar is very clear. It is certainly not that taliban are non-violent "gandhians" or resemble Gandhi in anyway other than their distaste for progress. Nor have we said that there were no jehadis before Gandhi... However historic antecedents must be clear.

I suggest you go back to what Majumdar actually said. I stand by my conclusions in 169.

Don't you folks get tired of debating over and over on same old subjects. In the last decade have you managed to convert any to your way of thinking? you guys remind me of Adda from my native Pune.

Re: # 346 RAS, do you really think .....naah forget it...though here is an interesting proverb

A deaf ear is followed by death and an ear that listens is followed by blessings. (its african BTW)

But Mantolives is training to be a Barrister on Par with MAJ and as a result he has to take stands which are not popular. But in this case, Mantolives is getting carried away with his arguments...

Manto Mian,

Please hold back your thoughts here and concentrate your

energy where it can do some good.

Regards

Ras

Dear Mantolives:

That Gandhi germinated the current day jihadis of the Taliban variety is your story. It could find a few takers who want to find a person to assign the blame for whatever reasons, but I don't believe it and find it actually funny. There were jihadis even before Gandhi was born.

I have read your #169 (or rather comments from Achyut Patwardhan) even before. I agree with that to the extent that Gandhi supported the regressive Khilafat movement and the backward looking Muslims. whereas he was all for reforms in Hinduism, he just turned the other way in regards to Islam. But that is different than saying he is the cause of the jihadi Islam.

Achyut Patwardhan and you seem to attach too much importance to Gandhi. I don't think he had much influence on Muslims to actually reform Islam. He is a Kafir and at best a perfect dhimmi. Even the one who was with Gandhi is the Khilafat movement has said this (Maulana_Mohammad_Ali)
"Even the most degraded Muhammadan was better than Mahatma Gandhi."

That is the influence Gandhi (the perfect dhimmi ) really had.. :-)

Dear Masanamuthu,

That is neither here nor there.

Indeed if you read my post 169 you would see that some of these groups had become Gandhi's frankenstein monster during his lifetime.

As a rule out of control frankenstein monsters don't distinguish between their makers and other people.

In many ways the Jurassic Park 1 2 and 3 and Richard Attenborough (the maker of Gandhi the movie) in it is a much better and more accurate movie on Gandhi's life.

Richard Attenborough's character in Jurassic Park is obvious equivalent of Gandhi.

And the Raptors and Rex etc are equivalents of Islamic and Hindu fundamentalism which Gandhi-unwittingly- spawned.

No we don't. We don't know who the governor is talking about... But we certainly know he is not talking about Usmani's breakaway faction which supported the League.

The credit for Taliban goes to Mufti Mahmood and his son and his disciple ...who have an unbroken historical continuity with the Congress.


Hmm.. So according to you Gandhi and Congress are both the father and mother of Taliban. Somehow, the picture of Gandhi leading the jihadis of Taliban doesn't look right or sound logical from what we know, even though it would be cool compared to the boring 'Gandhi' movie.

arjun, what do you think?. Imagine a scene in Gandhi-2 where Gandhi is exhorting the jihadis of Taliban to bomb the Buddhas. :-)